Kazuma is useless. Darkness is useless. Megumin is also useless. Aqua is especially useless. Everyone is useless in the world of KonoSuba! And it is great.

After an embarrassing death, high schooler Kazuma has the chance at another life in a fantasy world. A nerd’s dream come true! Unfortunately, he spawns as the worst class in the game and Aqua, the goddess that granted the new life, is a companion without talents to speak of. They soon recruit descendant from a powerful magical bloodline, arch wizard Megumin, master of explosion magic. At last, some strength to the group!

Nope. She can only cast one spell before collapsing. Well, at least they have a resilient tank in the form of paladin Darkness. She will save them! Nope. She’s has zero accuracy in combat and is a masochist that loves taking a beating from monsters – the more people that watch her sweet arse and bountiful breasts get beat the better.

KonoSuba is a refreshing change after trudging through the endless mire of isekai (otherworld) anime. This parody is better and funnier than the vast majority of titles in the genre, not to suggest there is stiff competition.

Everything works and make sense in this take on the genre, Kazuma being utter trash most of all. His team starting out at the bottom doing menial quests such as slaying killer cabbages and painting houses that barely pay enough for living expenses (note how most isekai forget expenses), just like in any MMO, makes sense. Every isekai fan believes that if they woke up in a fantasy world, they would be a powerful knight or wizard at the top of the food chain (just like how advocates for communism think they would be part of the small ruling class and not one of a billion peasants at the bottom). Who knew that being an otaku NEET doesn’t train you for life in a dangerous fantasy world? KonoSuba shows the reality of how garbage everyone would be and leans into it for great comedic effect.

The characters in particular bring this series together. They are such fun, such a riot to hang out with that they overshadow problems. I did think there was a risk of repetition at the start. For example, Darkness’s love of masochism could have quickly become her running into the fray to get smashed, we laugh at the joke and repeat next episode. However, the joke stays fresh because it isn’t about having her armour stripped off each battle. Instead, it’s about the ridiculous lengths she will go to for arousal and how much more desperate she is each time. Just when I thought it wouldn’t be funny anymore, she surprised me next episode.

The big problem with KonoSuba is the story, or lack thereof. The main goal is to defeat the Demon King, something I forgot about a few episodes in since they ignore this in favour of episodic stories. Now, these small stories work well in facilitating the characters and comedy, but they don’t progress the plot. Watching these episodes in the moment wasn’t a problem until it cares about the Demon King again, where it reminds you of how little the plot has moved. The overarching story feels like an afterthought. “Oh damn, I wrote all these great jokes but forgot the story. Quick, make something up – kill bad guy…big monster…demon…yes, demon king! All done. Phew.”

As such, if you are going to watch KonoSuba, you have to do so for the characters and humour. The world itself lacks depth, having used the generic fantasy template, and the story is just as straightforward as can be. If after you meet the whole team you don’t find it funny, then don’t proceed further.

Art – Medium

I like the colours and character designs. It’s a shame little effort went into making the environments anything but generic. If you removed characters from the shot, you wouldn’t know which anime the environment was from. The animation is strong, particularly in the spell effects that took the largest portion of the budget.

Sound – High

The acting is strong, though it may take a little getting used to Kazuma’s voice, as he sounds too old for a teen, but hey, at least it’s something different from the usual forgettable isekai protagonists. (Note: There is a dub on the way, for those interested.)

Story – Medium

A teen revives in a fantasy world, but has no talents and is surrounded by others with no talent either. Characters and humour hold up this rather barebones story.

Overall Quality – High

Recommendation: A must for comedy fans. KonoSuba is greater than the sum of its parts thanks to its characters and hilarious comedy. This is an easy anime to watch and recommend.

In an odd coincidence, I have completed three anime that open with a similar premise – Toward the Terra, Xam’d: Lost Memories, and No.6. They are each about a late teen living a good life, free of worries, when an outsider tells him it’s all a lie and his life turns upside down.

In No.6, Shion lives in the sixth of humanity’s utopian cities. Everything is perfect – no poverty, no crime, no conflict. He was one of the city’s elite residents with every luxury paid for in exchange for contributing to society in an area of expertise – ecology, in Shion’s case. He lost all such privileges at 12 years old when he helped one of society’s rejects take shelter. Years later, he now oversee No.6’s trash bots.

When a disease hits the city that causes rapid aging, the authorities arrest Shion. Of course, he’s as clueless as the rest, but he dared question The Man and for that, he must die. However, the same boy from all those years back who goes by the name Nezumi, meaning “rat”, scurries to the rescue and breaks him free of society’s shackles. The adventure begins.

I love this type of opening that upends the protagonist’s world. It raises so many questions at once, generating immense conflict for the protagonist torn between the world they once knew and the new reality, and I can’t want to see it all unravel. How did society erect the façade in the first place? How does it control the populace? Why? What’s the protagonist’s involvement in its history (there is always something)? How have the Outsiders survived all this time?

…

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

No.6 doesn’t make an effort in any of these questions.

Damn. What a shame.

Once out of the city, marking the end of act 1, the plot just stalls like a novice driver confusing the clutch and accelerator pedals. Each episode of act 2 goes as follows: Nezumi saying he hates the city, Shion asking why, Nezumi saying he’ll tell him later, and repeat. Characters don’t take action. There are minor moments – just not enough to drive the plot forward.

The next real event is at the end of act 2, leading into act 3. It’s as though the writer set in stone that “When the characters meet this guy over here, act 3 starts.” She refused to bring this event forward and come up with something else to start act 3 when act 2 had nothing going on (or write new events to lift the drought). I see this occur a lot in Korean dramas. The studio mandates a certain number of episodes to fill the TV schedule – usually 16 1-hour episodes, yet their romantic comedies are rarely complex enough to fill 16 hours. Acts 1 and 3 have stricter lengths in a story than 2 does. A slow first act turns the audience off and they won’t return. A slow third act leaves a bad aftertaste. Therefore, the filler slumps into the second act (“will they, won’t they,” and “problem of the episode” scenarios).

Unlike those drawn out K-dramas, a fictional world with a grand conflict like No. 6 has plenty of material to tap into. Why didn’t we explore more of the city and its utopian society? The idea of each citizen focused on one specialty with everything paid for isn’t relevant after the opening. This world has but a fraction of Psycho-Pass’s depth.

Act 2 instead focuses on the main couple, which doesn’t work either. There is too much focus on Shion and Nezumi’s relationship, yet not enough because it doesn’t move anywhere during this middle section. Again, I suspect the writer refused to allow their development to progress, “Keeping the good bits for the end.” The one positive I can say about their relationship is that it isn’t a shounen ai tease. It commits.

Even when the plot does get off the recliner, our protagonists aren’t driving agents to lead the story. Their allies do more work than they do in resolving the grand conflict. It feels as if the writer had an idea for a couple but no story to accompany them, and an idea of a story but no characters to lead it. Since they were lacking each other in the technical sense, she brought them together like the final two pieces of a puzzle. She didn’t realise they weren’t meant for the same puzzle. At least not without further work.

None of the backstory mysteries involving Shion’s mother, the city’s origin, and the rebels amount to anything meaningful. The writer knew mysteries should be there to entice the audience, but didn’t go back to flesh them out and tie them to the plot in a meaningful way.

You can look to several other anime for this idea executed expertly. Start with Psycho-Pass. No. 6 isn’t a terrible anime. Though when others have already shown you how to do it right, it’s difficult not see all the problems despite any positives.

Art – High

No. 6’s strongest quality is the art, particularly the animation. Episode 9 has a Ghibli quality scene. I also like the visual contrast between the clean city and dirty slums.

Sound – Medium

The acting is good and most music works well. The OP and ED songs have no life in them and sound so weird. I’m unsure of what they are trying to convey in relation to the narrative.

Story – Low

A boy has his utopian life upended when he helps an outsider, who later helps him escape the authorities in return. A good start isn’t enough to keep one going to through a stalled second act and poorly fleshed out finale.

Overall Quality – Low

Recommendation: Skip it. With the likes of Psycho-Pass, RahXephon, and Towards the Terra, to name a few, using the same setup to greater results, there is little reason to knock at No. 6.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is so boring that I only tried to answer one question before its end: Is this Sakura the same as the one from Cardcaptor Sakura? They look the same and share a name. Turns out, no, they aren’t the same. The author was just too lazy to come up someone new. Well, that’s it, end of review – see you next time!

What, you want me to talk about this anime? What is there to say? Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is so full of nothing that there is nothing to talk about.

Syaoran and Sakura are a young teen couple madly in love, but when she grows wings and her feathers disperse into other dimensions, she loses her precious memories including those of him. Syaoran starts hopping through dimensions to different worlds, where he meets a ninja torn from his world, a magician, and the rabbit thing Mokona from xxxHOLiC (one of the dimensions), who help recollect her feathers.

Initially, I liked how Syaoran and Sakura started as a couple – unusual for teen anime – as I believed it meant skip over the shy “will they, won’t they” nature of anime romance and go straight to developing them as a couple. Unfortunately, when she loses her feathers, she transforms into a comatose slab of boring that occasionally wakes up.

The narrative doesn’t take time to establish these two in our hearts for us to care when Sakura goes down. Why do they love each other? This is supposedly a love so strong it transcends time and space, yet we have no reason to believe it. Even once she stops sleeping so much in later episodes, she’s as empty headed as one can imagine. The author wanted to start on the big moment of her losing her memories, which is fine, but she then needed to work harder to make us care through flashbacks, or something.

Looking past this empty couple, there is nothing else to see. The action is boring as sin with its series of meaningless fights and poor animation. Cardcaptor Sakura has better action than this action series (and its collecting element is stronger). Not even using a Pokémon-like approach to the battles with magical companions can make it interesting. The action feels like filler with no end in sight since they extend the quest on a whim by saying, “Well, you’ve collected 200 feathers so far, but there’s another 100 to go! … Wait, did I say 100? I meant 300!”

Don’t fall for it. Don’t waste your time with Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. This is a contender for the Most Boring Anime of All Time award.

Art – Low

The characters look too similar to other CLAMP titles, the animation is poor, and the colouring is desaturated in season 1. It’s hard to take the drama seriously when everyone looks like Jack Skellington with giant hands. This is moving manga with worse character art than the manga.

Sound – Medium

The acting is fine, I suppose, considering the script has nothing to say. The music is the only good element, a little reminiscent of .hack//Sign’s excellent soundtrack.

Story – Low

A boy travels to different dimensions to recollect his girlfriend’s lost memories with the aid of unlikely allies. So full of nothing, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle gives you no reason to care.

Overall Quality – Low

Recommendation: Skip it. There isn’t anything awful about Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, but that’s not a reason to watch something.

Banana Fish is an adaptation of a manga by the same name that ended 24 years ago. Once a manga reaches a certain age, it’s often deemed outdated and financially unviable. Should one receive an anime adaptation, even then it could become “old news” and have no second season in favour of a gamble at the next big hit. So it’s a pleasant surprise to see something as old as Banana Fish on the slate. And when a studio does go out of its way for an old licence, they will put the full production effort behind it, as is the case here.

The story centres on young AshLynx, a handsome boy adopted by New York City Mafia Don DinoGolzine, who declares that Ash should inherit his empire. The boy is ruthless, resourceful, and charismatic – all the qualities he desires in an heir (and it helps that Ash is just his type). Unfortunately for the Don, the boy is also rebellious and despises him like the devil. Ash becomes hell-bent on destroying his father and abuser, especially once suspicion arises of his involvement in the death of Ash’s brother and a mind control drug called Banana Fish. This dangerous game becomes more personal when he meets Japanese photographer Eiji, with whom he makes fast friends. Eiji has just entered a world of abuse, drugs, and death.

Ash is an interesting character and the strongest element of the story. He is a mix of violence and pain as he hates just about everything in his life, yet has these moments of intense vulnerability like a lost child that has no idea of the world. As a child, people sexually abused him, particularly in the mafia including Dino, which taught him that his most valuable asset to these monsters is his body. He’s so damaged by this, one isn’t sure if he’s actually gay or if he’s willing to use his asset to gain the upper hand. It’s messed up, but it makes for an interesting protagonist.

Banana Fish opens on a song to hype you up for the action and ends on a ballad of sadness to remind you of Ash’s pain. That is the heart of Banana Fish.

Eiji is the opposite: sweet, innocent, doesn’t know how to handle gun, and hasn’t even kissed someone. He’s the only good in Ash’s life. Nothing was free in Ash’s world, until he made a friend.

The rest of the cast is a motley crew of gangsters, street urchins, and forgotten soldiers. They work fine in their roles. Where Banana Fish fails its characters is with the villains. Not one of them is interesting or has any depth. Dino is just a creep obsessed with getting Ash to come back as his heir. His plan to accomplish this? What plan? The Chinese guy with long hair, said to be a master manipulator, only succeeds through plot convenience and his ultimate desire for death is just nonsensical. He’s more whiny cartoon child than evil genius. The rest are run-of-the-mill thugs and henchmen, as normal.

The focus on action over character does lessen the impact of weak villains, since this isn’t a battle of ideologies or wits. However, the action-dominated story does dampen the initial setup with Ash’s background and his friendship with Eiji. It doesn’t stop long enough for us to absorb these characters.

To compound problems further (it’s chain of problems, at this point, one leading into the next), the action isn’t smart like Code Geass or stylised like John Wick or Mad Max: Fury Road, so I don’t feel the action alone can carry the series to greatness. People take life-threatening injuries only to stand up a minute later as if they won’t die of blood loss any moment now. Also, Ash is supposed to have an IQ of 180, yet his plans are far from genius. One hit on Dino involves standing atop a truck to take the shot while speeding past. Really, that’s your plan? Nothing in Banana Fish lends credence to his genius label. If they simply hadn’t mentioned it in that one episode, it would have been irrelevant. He’s of average intelligence with high charisma, which is perfectly fine.

My other problem with Ash is the overuse of certain tropes. For instance, I lost count the number of times he wiled his way out of captivity by seducing his captor/guard. It’s awfully convenient that every single one of them is gay and falls for the oldest trick in the book. It made sense the first time when his captor was a past abuser that still craved him. After that is pushing it. Even the humour, which is often jarringly out of place, uses this trope in a light-hearted manner.

Banana Fish has a much stronger first half than second. The first has all the tension, tough choices, harsh losses, and less to do with weak villains. It’s still a decent anime in the second half, though you have to love it for the action more than anything else. And if you make it to the end, the final scene is the best in the series.

Art – High

One of the better-looking series of the year, Banana Fish has a colourful style with plenty of detail, nice animation, and consistent quality. Distant characters lack detail though.

Sound – High

From OP to ED, main character to supporting, all the audio is great.

Story – Medium

An heir to a criminal empire rebels against the predator that raised him and finds friendship in an unexpected place. Banana Fish has a strong first half, fluctuates up and down for the rest of the way, but ends on a great moment.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: For action fans. Banana Fish looks great and has plenty of action to keep the crowd busy. Not for children.

Naruto, Bleach, One Piece – the trinity, the hotness at one time. It started with Naruto for me and Bleach came not long after. I was in the door early for both, keeping me hooked on a weekly basis. I didn’t need more, so I never tried One Piece. I’m sure that if any of my friends were interested in it, I would have started it to keep up with weekly conversation as I had with the other two.

Years passed, Naruto and Bleach descending into the filler nightmares (Bleach turned to garbage as well, but that wasn’t enough to stop me watching yet). I needed my shounen fix. Twelve years ago, I tried One Piece for the first time. I had heard good things. “If you like Naruto, you’ll like One Piece, for sure.”

Episodes aired: ~250

Five episodes and I couldn’t go any further. The art was just too ugly. I particularly hated the hyper-stretched mouths and expressions. The immature protagonist, the try-hard guy with a sword in his teeth, the screech acting – I couldn’t do it. I was already sick of Naruto’s – the character’s – immaturity. I couldn’t take another such protagonist for hundreds of episodes. Luffy didn’t have the legacy status in my mind to make me look past his issues.

I dropped One Piece.

Leap forward five years. I was talking with a friend about our early anime days and the topic of shounen series came up. I had long since moved past such drawn out, poorly paced stories. When One Piece came up and I told him of how I hadn’t managed to stomach it, he said how he had felt the same, but pushed through and come to love it. He re-recommended it to me with conviction. So I looked it up again.

Episodes aired: ~500

…

Well, I could get through that eventually, I supposed. And I was willing to try it again. I was just going to get through a bunch of smaller series first, get them out of the way before I sink into the behemoth.

That bunch turned into a field of smaller series, which, coupled with my on-and-off interest in anime, delayed the trial more and more. But I was going to try it. I made certain of that.

We leap another few years forward and my passion for anime has reignited to the point where a desire to write anime reviews for my own enjoyment has started to burn. The idea swims around in my head for a while longer, until I decide to go for it.

Okay, now it’s serious. I couldn’t review anime and not review One Piece. Writing a review would be motivation to watch because now, even if I didn’t like it, I could write about what I thought of this ever-growing monster.

Episodes aired: ~700

Not a problem – I would review a few dozen 13 or 26-episode anime first, likely ones I had seen before and could rewatch quicker, build up a backlog of reviews ready to go before I tackle One Piece. There wasn’t anything to worry about. I had a plan.

“Remember that series Monster you had failed to finish over a decade ago? Yeah, it’s one of the greatest anime, so you have to complete and review it.” Sure, it was only 74 episodes, nothing like the near 750 episodes of One Piece. I could just get that out the way first. Oh, and, of course, I had to review Naruto, at least the classic series, to use as a point of comparison. A mere 136 episodes against One Piece. I could get through Naruto in a month with the Naruto Kai edit. That would add, what, four or five episodes to One Piece? No problem.

What about those sports anime like Ippo? I needed more variety to balance out the action heavy landscape of my anime reviews and sports was a niche in my library. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, how could I leave such a great on the backlog for so long?

“Have you heard of Korean dramas? What about British panel shows? How long has it been since you watched a Bollywood film? And you haven’t rewatched Top Gear in a while.”

Good point. I needed more than just anime or I would burn out. Plus, the gaming backlog was growing ever larger and needed trimming.

“Have you watched your favourite anime, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, yet? That’s only 110 episodes – much quicker to get through than One Piece.”

Episodes aired: ~800

Alright, that was it. I was never going to get around to One Piece! I knew it. My friends knew it. It had become an inside joke for how many small things I would just “get out of the way” first, after which I assured them I would get to One Piece. In truth, it was only on the backlist because it took no effort to keep it. Saying you are going to do something is less meaningful than a fart in the wind until you commit.

A time came about a year or so ago for me to cull the backlog. I went through the list, briefly checking each title to see if there was any hope or even the slightest interest in getting to them in my lifetime. I axed 50 titles with ease. Except, there was still One Piece. I was about to drop it when I saw a video about one of the characters. I was so beyond the fantasy of ever watching this anime that I didn’t care about spoilers. The video was great, and you know what? It made want to watch it, even if it meant skipping through the early content to reach the arc where it “gets good”.

Sadly, and as no surprise to anyone, I am sure, I still haven’t touched the series. It has surpassed 860 episodes (and growing) and I still have no idea when, or even if, I will watch a single episode of One Piece. See, I have it in my mind that it would be more productive and enjoyable for me to get through other, smaller anime instead. Allow me to illustrate.

Following is my complete backlog of anime. Not all titles will be completed, nor do all have equal weight and priority. Everything on this list has a good chance of getting my eyeballs for a few episodes, at least. And yes, the garbage is there intentionally.

The following are anime I’ve completed (or nearly), but not published the reviews yet (the holidays were good for tackling the backlog):

A Certain Magical Index

Astro Fighter Sunred

Banana Fish

Ef – A Tale of Memories

Evangelion Rebuild (pending final film)

From Me to You

Glass Mask

Golden Time

Gosick

House of Five Leaves

Jormungand

Konosuba

Le Chevalier D’Eon

Log Horizon Season 2

My Hero Academia (ongoing)

My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU

Nisekoi

Persona 4 the Animation

Sailor Moon (waiting on final season remaster)

Silver Spoon

Story of Saiunkoku

Sword Art Online 2

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

Utawarerumono

Yowamushi Pedal

In total, that comes to about 80 unique series and movies with possibly more, depending on how much I want to see of the larger franchises. Let’s not forget any upcoming releases and requests from you, dear readers, either.

As of this article’s writing, One Piece is about to air its 869th episode. If we assume each episode is roughly 20 minutes, skipping OP and ED, it would take over 289 hours to finish the series! Of course, I would skip the 107 filler episodes, bringing the total runtime down to 254 hours. In that same time, I could finish between 40 and 50 of the series listed above.

What would I rather do? Experience a large variety or stick to one long series? Naturally, I’d want to do both if possible. So, what’s the solution?

I probably need to turn to the manga first. I can read volumes at a fast pace, allowing me to clear the same story in a fraction of the time, free of filler and stall tactics to lengthen scenes. However, I prefer anime to manga assuming both are of equal quality, though in the case of shounen, especially once the filler starts, the manga is often better. On the other hand, it’s nice to see key fights in motion. Perhaps I could read the majority and just watch the best arcs? That’s my current thinking.

Oh, but before I can read 91 volumes of One Piece, what about the shorter manga on my backlog? (Here we go again…) Noblesse, Lone Wolf and Cub, Vagabond, and 20th Century Boys, to name a few.

Regardless of what route I take, there are plenty of smaller series I want to finish first. My goal is to complete (or drop) every series in the above list that has 50 episodes or less by the end of the 2019.

One final thing to keep in mind is that I have barely rewatched any media (excluding anime I had to rewatch for their reviews) or replayed any games since I started this site, and I’m getting the strong urge to revisit some favourites, which equates to more delays for One Piece. So will it ever be done? I don’t know… I truly don’t know, but I will try.

(What if it turns out I still can’t stand One Piece a few volumes in, dropping it and rendering all of this redundant? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?)